托福口语素材积累：科技与生活

　　Rousseau has got used to these things, and does not regard them as against nature. But he would no doubt have thundered against railways if he had lived to see them. Clothes and cooking are too ancient to be denounced by most of the apostles of nature, though they all object to new fashions in either. Birth control is thought wicked by people who tolerate celibacy, because the former is a new violation of nature and the latter an ancient one. In these ways those who preach ‘nature’ are inconsistent, and one is tempted to regard them as mere conservatives.

　　卢梭对这些东西习以为常，所以并不认为它们是违反自然的。但是，假如他在有生之年看见铁路，他无疑会大加指责。服装和烹饪由来已久，大多数提倡自然的人都不提出异议，虽然它们一致反对花样翻新。节育被当成犯罪，而独身则被宽容，因为前者是违反自然的新事物，而后者则古已有之。在所有这些方面，那些提倡‘自然’的人都是自相矛盾的，这只能使人把它们看成是守旧之士。

　　Nevertheless, there is something to be said in their favor. Take for instance vitamins, the discovery of which has produced a revulsion in favor of ‘natural’ foods. It seems, however, that vitamins can be supplied by cod-liver oil and electric light, which are certainly not part of the ‘natural’ diet of a human being. This case illustrates that, in the absence of knowledge, unexpected harm may be done by a new departure from nature, but when the harm has come to be understood it can usually be remedied by some new artificiality. As regards our physical environment and our physical means of gratifying our desires, I do not think the doctrine of ‘nature’ justifies anything beyond a certain experimental caution in the adoption of new expedients. Clothes, for instance, are contrary to nature, and need to be supplemented by another unnatural practice, namely washing, if they are not to bring disease. But the two practices together make a man healthier than the savage who eschews both.

　　然而，他们并非一无是处。例如，维生素的发现使人们复而赞成‘自然的’食物。不过，维生素似乎也可由鱼肝油和电光提供，此二者无疑不是人类‘自然的’食物。这个例子表明，如果缺少知识，一种违反自然的新做法也许会带来意想不到的危害，但是当那危害被认识到时，往往可以用某种新的人造物去补救。就我们的自然环境和满足我们欲望的物质手段而言，我认为，有关‘自然’的这套理论，除了证明在采取某种新的做法时应谨慎外，并不能证明别的什么。例如，衣服是违反自然的，如果不想让衣服引起疾病，就需要增加另一种不自然的行为，即洗涤。但是，穿衣与洗涤加在一起却可使人比与此二者无缘的野蛮人要健康。

　　To respect physical nature is foolish; physical nature should be studied with a view to making it serve human ends as far as possible, but it remains ethically neither good nor bad. And where physical nature and human nature interact, as in the population question, there is no need to fold our hands in passive adoration and accept war, pestilence, and famine as the only possible means of dealing with excessive fertility. The divines say: it is wicked, in this matter, to apply science to the physical side of the problem; we must (they say) apply morals to the human side, and practice abstinence. Apart from the fact that everyone, including the divines, knows that their advice will not be taken, why should it be wicked to solve the population question by adopting physical means for preventing conception?

　　尊重物质的自然是愚蠢的; 物质的自然应当加以研究，以便使其尽可能地服务于人类的目的，但它在道德上是无所谓好坏的。在物质的自然和人类的天性相互影响的地方，如人口问题，我们无须束手被动地敬畏并接受战争，瘟疫和饥荒为解决过度繁殖的问题的唯一可能的方法。神学家们说，在此事上，应用科学于这一问题的物质方面是罪恶的;我们应当(他们说)应用道德于人的方面，并且实行禁欲。每个人，这些神学家也不例外，都知道他们的劝告无人理睬，撇开这个事实不谈，通过避孕的物质手段来解决人口问题究竟何罪之有?

　　No answer is forthcoming except one based upon antiquated dogmas. And clearly the violence to nature advocated by the divines is at least as great as that involved in birth control. The divines prefer a violence to human nature which, when successfully pracised, involves unhappiness, envy, a tendency to persecution, often madness. I prefer a ‘violence’ to physical nature which is of the same sort as that involved in the steam engine or even in the use of an umbrella. This instance should show ambiguous and uncertain is the application of the principle that we should follow ‘nature.’

　　除了这是以古代教义为根据的，尚无别的答案。而且显而易见，这对于神学家所提倡的自然的违反，至少不在节育之下。神学家们宁可选择违反人类天性的做法，而这种做法的成功产生的却是不幸，嫉妒，迫害的倾向和经常性的疯狂。我更喜欢‘违反’物质自然的做法。这是一种类似使用蒸汽机或雨伞的做法。这个例子表明，我们应遵循‘自然’这一原则，它的应用是何等的含混和不确定。

　　Nature, even human nature, will cease more and more to be an absolute datum; more and more it will become what scientific manipulation has made it. Science can, if it chooses, enable our grandchildren to live the good life, by giving them knowledge, self-control, and characters productive of harmony rather than strife.

　　(What I Believe, 1925)

　　自然，甚至人性，将越来越不再是一种绝对的材料，而将逐渐成为科学所造成的东西。科学如果愿意，它能使我们的子孙过上美好的生活，方法是给他们以知识，自制力能产生和谐而非斗争的品性。

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